Beartic @ Life Orb
Swift Swim
Adamant 252 Atk / 4 Def / 252 Spe
- Icicile Crash
- Low Kick / Superpower
- Swords Dance
- Encore
And now for something completely different. Beartic is a very odd Swift Swimmer, having no Water-typing at all. As such it plays quite differently from your typical Swift Swim sweeper, since it doesn't have a double-STAB to throw around. However, its offensive typing is very good against Ubers walls, especially the ones the average Swift Swimmer does not like dealing with: Groudon, Giratina, and Grass Arceus, to name a few. Beartic also has access to Fighting-type coverage moves, allowing it to demolish Ferrothorn, another consistent nuisance for rain-teams (although Kabutops can do that too). Furthermore, Beartic has access to the extremely valuable Encore, allowing it to make set-up opportunities for itself against things like Ferrothorn and Forretress.
Beartic is not a great Swift Swimmer though. For one, it's slow as balls. It just barely outspeeds Mewtwo in rain, and even with a Jolly nature can't match up to Timid Base 90 Scarfers, let alone Genesect or Palkia. It's in fact so slow that support Groudon outspeeds it, making Beartic much less effective at dealing with it, which should be one of its defining niches. Beartic is also heavily dependent on getting that boost, so much so that I found myself using Wobbuffet to support it. And at that point, while running SD Kabutops side-by-side for comparison purposes, I realized I'd generally much rather use Wobbuffet to set up Kabutops instead, unless the opponent was really really weak to Ice-type attacks.
Beartic can do some nice things, and is very unique for an Ubers Swift Swimmer, but it really hasn't impressed me at all, in spite of my initial enthusiasm for the set. Anyone have experience with Beartic (or other unusual Swift Swimmers) that they'd like to share?